The Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) of MPs has published its report into China’s influence on Britain, and it doesn’t make for easy reading. According to the dossier, the UK government has “no strategy” to tackle the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party, and Britain is now “severely handicapped” by its “short-termist approach” to taking Chinese cash without asking too many questions. The report is scathing: in no uncertain terms, it claims China has “successfully penetrated every sector of the UK’s economy”…

Just days after a Chinese spy was accused of “infiltrating” Parliament with ease, the ISC inquiry says Whitehall’s response to this sort of espionage has been “completely inadequate“:

China’s size, ambition and capability have enabled it to successfully penetrate every sector of the UK’s economy… The government has been so keen to take Chinese money that it has not been watching China’s sleight of hand whilst it overtly penetrated the UK’s energy and industry sectors… the government has no strategy on China, let alone an effective one, and that it was singularly failing to deploy a ‘whole-of-government’ approach – a damning appraisal indeed.”

Sounds like the CCP is more than just “an epoch-defining challenge”, as Rishi has claimed…

Read the full report here (warning: it is 200 pages long).